Final Fantasy 13 vs other JRPG's this gen

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

rocketpig said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

Mr Puggsly said:

Its not that I hate JRPGs, its just been a long time since I felt like I'm play something great. Bear in mind I still do play them, I have several on the 360, but I haven't completed because I lose interest. So I understand why they are getting low scores.

I reserve my opinions of FFXIII because I haven't played. But I will down the road. However, I disagree with the notion that JRPGs are getting lower scores because of a bias. I think reviewers are just tired of playing JRPGs that feel like games we've been playing for years.

Again, this goes back to my points about how most people 'in the west' aren't even looking at the majority of JRPGs.  Which are on, wait for it....handhelds.  And the majority of their experience with JRPGs can be summed up in one of three main series.

Good for you, you have played plenty.  But by your own admittance, you only played a select set of games on the 360.  I really have no quarrels against any specific JRPGs, but it does seem the trend that people 'in the west' are looking at only specific types of things when they are looking for RPGs.  And when it comes to JRPGs, quite often they are being pegged as 'old and formulaic'.  Yet what do I hear time and time again?  People are only playing 'certain' games on 'certain' systems (mostly only 'high end graphical' JRPGs on 'HD' consoles).  You can't hand pick games in a genre and then downplay the WHOLE genre for being 'stale'.  It would be like someone simply playing Crysis and saying 'FPS have no innovation' or someone playing Little King Story and saying 'RTS games lack good controls'.

Do you see what I'm saying?  And I'm sorry if it seems like I'm blowing up about such a simple topic and I really am not targeting you specifically, but its just....this topic is getting really old and its pretty much been going on since last gen.  And its just getting more and more inane.  Mostly due to 'reviewers' and people who think they suddenly are the greatest of RPG fans and know what a 'true' RPG is because they played Mass Effect and Fallout 3.

I agree with you 100% but most of the console JRPG experiences this generation HAVE been the same old shit. I played Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon (actually my favorite of the bunch), Folklore (barely a JRPG), and Lost Odyssey thus far. I burned out at that point and stopped. I was looking at FF XIII but a few of my friends (whose opinions I actually trust about games and aren't slobbering fanboys) have classified the game somewhere between "meh" and "OMG I'm going to bang my fucking head against a wall because I feel like I've played this game 500 times in my life already". Not exactly a ringing endorsement for me to go drop $60 on it.

And this "reviewers hate JRPGs and are biased" crap needs to stop, man. There just haven't been many good JRPGs this generation. Yes, they overblow shooters. I'm the first to admit that. On the other hand, I think they nail most JRPGs straight on the mark. Look at some of the handheld JRPGs... TWEWY Metacritic'ed at 88. Totally fair score for that game and borderline great. Chrono Trigger pulled down a 92. FF IV pulled an 85. Not bad for a 20 year old game with a 3D coating.

The fact is that people should be blaming developers for pushing out entirely mediocre product, not the reviewers for calling them out on it. If anything, this is the ONE CASE where reviewers are getting it right.

I can't really comment on the console side of reviewers opinions, but as for handheld scores, I don't really think they're exactly scoring them well.  But then, there's some OTHER bias going on there, mostly due to the fact that I think handheld games get downscored overall (mostly because they're unjustly compared to console games).  But considering the majority of JRPG games are on handhelds, and what I consider to be the better or 'more inovative' JRPGs are on handhelds, this is a problem.

I mean, when you have the major games from series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokemon, Mario & Luigi, Harvest Moon, Advance Wars, Disgaea, etc all avg under 90 due to being on a handheld, that's already going to give people an image that JRPGs are 'inferior'.  Its no wonder that everyone in the west is expecting FFXIII to be the end all of the JRPG genre.

Yet arguably the biggest JRPG this gen so far was Dragon Quest IX, and no one in the west is even looking at it because its a handheld game AND a Dragon Quest game.